E-catalogue to the exhibition of the same name, opening October 16, 2025.
A denizen of the artistic and intellectual milieus of New York City and Bridgehampton, New York, Cornelia Foss has long been considered the standard bearer of an expressive figurative style that characterized much of the art in Eastern Long Island during the second half of the 20th century.
Foss is celebrated for her tender portraits, her bright, gestural still lifes, and expansive landscapes with broad, colorful swaths of surf and sky. But the works in this exhibition represent a departure from her typical subjects. The “Little Reds,” as the artist calls them, are a series of paintings executed over the past ten years that she considers intensely personal. Unlike her joyful seascapes, the “Little Reds” stand out for their moody, agitated aesthetic with a depth of emotion not found elsewhere in her oeuvre. These paintings draw from the fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood. The story of a little girl and a “big, bad wolf” is the ultimate cautionary tale of good vs. evil, vulnerability and courage, the loss of innocence and the menace of power. Now in her late career and life, Foss employs the story as a hauntingly effective device for processing the trauma of her youth when, as a 9-year-old girl of mixed Christian-Jewish heritage, she and her mother experienced a harrowing escape from Berlin, Germany, in the fall of 1939.